> >Moseley re-cast the data into authentic Marxian categories. Michael Dawson writes: > I agree with Doug. I also agree with G. Lukacs -- "Orthodox Marxism, > therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the > results of Marx's > investigations. It is not the 'belief' in this or that thesis, nor the > exegesis of a 'sacred' book. On the contrary, orthodoxy > refers exclusively to method."
I'd agree with that, but a lot of Marx's method is reflected in his substantive conclusions, so we can't make a hard-and-fast separation here. Form and content are not totally distinct. > Talk about Procrustes trying to put his guest to bed! The > world has changed since 1867, and Marx's categories were never perfect to begin > with. What, for instance, is "unproductive labor?" All labor is > service-provision, whether it be bending metal into shapes, or putting food in a bag > and > handing it to somebody. Both are productive work, both alter > the world to make it more favorable to a human being. It was Smith, not Marx, who saw service labor as unproductive. Marx's productive labor simply was productive of surplus-value, so that services could be productive. Marx's "unproductive labor" is involved in the circulation of commodities (rather than their production) or in supervisory roles in production. I find it relatively easy to define this, as people like Tonak & Shaikh do. The question is whether Marx's concept is _useful_ for understanding the world. I'm not convinced that it is. My presumption is that it isn't. One problem is that unproductive labor can be "indirectly productive" (Jim O'Connor's term), which fuzzes up the concept, suggesting that different types of labor-power have different _degrees_ of productivity (direct and indirect). > As to finance, > insurance, and real > estate [FIRE], some percentage of what happens there is legit > service-provision, is > it not? Same for management. Much of managers' salaries are > disguised > property income (part of the surplus), but some part is pay for work. Converting a theoretical concept into an empirical one is always difficult, no matter the flavor of economics you're practicing. (Neoclassicals have the same problem, though Marxists are more likely to admit to it.) You try to do as well as you can. Further, though the FIRE sector undoubtedly includes some productive activity, a relative increase in the FIRE sector is _prima facie_ evidence of an increasing role for unproductive expenditure. That is, FIRE spending is a proxy for one kind of unproductive expenditure. Doug H. has used it in this way in his empirics. > As to the size of the surplus being a useful tool for thinking about > socialism -- yes, very true. Nevertheless, doesn't the size > of the surplus > under socialism depend on both democratic decisions that have > yet to even be > formulated, as well as on the degree of economic shrinkage we > experience > when we start to replace corporate dominance? There is undoubtedly a > gigantic amount of surplus wealth we are now producing. How > much we can and > want to produce under economic democracy -- who knows? the planning version of the surplus (including unproductive expenditure) is extremely problematical. As I've noted, it comes from Baran, not Marx. (Actually, something similar can be seen in Thomas More's UTOPIA and Edward Bellamy's LOOKING BACKWARD. Both, BTW, are very interesting.) > If you add together profits, rental income, interest income, > depreciation > allowances, and, say, half of corporate officer compensation, > straight out > of NIPA tables, doesn't that give you a pretty clear picture of > exploitation? Why "translate" this information into terms > nobody but us can > fathom? On a theoretical level, "surplus value" (a term that nobody but us can fathom) is part of a theory that gives a greater understanding than say, neoclassical economics or empiricism. The point is to separate it from versions that obfuscate (such as those that include unproductive expenditure as part of S) and to explain to those other folks what we're talking about. Surplus value can be easily explained as "property income." I think it's a mistake to avoid difficult language (such as "surplus value") just because people don't understand it. Difficult language will continue to be used (words like "democracy," "freedom," and "justice") whether we like it or not. Dropping our hard concepts simply means that hard concepts from other brands of political economy (e.g., "opportunity cost," "factors of production," "pure competition," "human capital") dominate. to Michaels' questions above, Doug answers: >Because it makes you think you're getting to a level of truth deeper than vulgar categories allow, even if no one can convincingly explain what that payoff from that increased depth is?< The idea that there's "a level of truth deeper than vulgar categories" says (in modern social-scientific terms) that we need to have some sort of theory about how the world works in order to interpret the data seen in the "vulgar categories." (Each theory has its own vocabulary or attaches different meaning to the same vocabulary.) Facts don't speak for themselves, while the "facts" usually have theories implicit in them (as when the national income accounts reflect Keynesian theory). Marx, I believe, has the best theory of where "property income" (i.e., surplus-value) comes from. In fact, he has the best theory of why that surplus-value is divided among different kinds (rent, profit, interest). And he has a theory -- the theory of the illusions created by competition (commodity fetishism) -- about why focusing on the "phenomenal forms" alone (rent, profit, interest) leads to confusion and ideology. Jim
